Preface to the Pamphlet,May Days in Kharkov

Written:Written early in November 1900Published:Published in January 1901 in a pamphlet issued byIskra.

      Published according to the text of the pamphlet.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1964,

      Moscow,Volume 4,

      pages357-365.Translated:Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaandD. WaltersPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive

      (2003).You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
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Thepresent pamphlet contains a description of the celebrated May Day
      demonstrations in Kharkov in 1900; it was drawn up by the Kharkov
      Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party on the basis of
      descriptions sent in by the workers themselves. It was sent to us as a
      newspaper report, but we consider it necessary to publish it as a
      separate pamphlet because of its size, as well as because in this way it
      will be possible to secure wider distribution. In another six months, the
      Russian workers will celebrate the First of May of the first year of the
      new century, and it is time we set to work organising the celebrations in
      as large a number of centres as possible, and on a scale as imposing as
      possible. They must be imposing, not only in the numbers of participants,
      but in the organised character and the class-consciousness the
      participants will display, in their determination to launch a resolute
      struggle for the political liberation of the Russian people and,
      consequently, for a free opportunity for the class development of the
      proletariat and its open struggle for socialism. It is time to prepare for
      the forthcoming May Day celebrations, and one of the most important
      preparation measures must consist in learning what the Social-Democratic
      movement in Russia has already achieved, in examining the short comings of
      our movement in general and of the May Day movement in particular, in
      devising means to eliminate these shortcomings and achieve better results.

MayDay in Kharkov showed what a great political demonstration a
      working-class festival can become andwhat we lack to make these celebrations a really great all-Russian
      manifestation of the class-conscious proletariat. What made the May Day
      celebrations in Kharkov an event of outstanding importance? The
      large-scale participation of the workers in the strike, the huge mass
      meetings in the streets, the unfurling of red flags, the presentation of
      demands put forth in proclamations and the revolutionary character of
      these demands: the eight-hour day and political liberty. The legend that
      the Russian workers have not yet matured for the political struggle, that
      their principal concern should be the purely economic struggle, which they
      should only little by little and very slowly supplement with partial
      political agitation for partial political reforms and not for the struggle
      against the entire political system of Russia—that legend has been
      totally refuted by the Kharkov May Day celebrations. But here we want to
      draw attention to another aspect of the matter. Although the May Day
      celebrations in Kharkov have once more demonstrated the political
      capacities of the Russian workers, they have, at the same time, revealed
      what we lack for the full development of these capacities.

TheKharkov Social-Democrats tried to prepare for the May Day celebrations
      by distributing pamphlets and leaflets in advance, and the workers drew up
      a plan for the general demonstration and for the speeches to be delivered
      in Konnaya Square. Why did the plan not succeed? The Kharkov comrades say
      because the “general staff” of the class-conscious socialist
      workers did not distribute its forces evenly, there having been many in
      one factory, and in another few; and, further, because the workers’ plan
      “was known to the authorities,” who, of course, took all steps to
      split the workers. The conclusion to be drawn is obvious: we lackorganisation. The masses of the workers were roused and ready to
      follow the socialist leaders; but the “general staff” failed
      to organise a strong nucleus able to distribute properly all the available
      forces of class-conscious workers and so ensure the necessary secrecy that
      the drawn-up plans of action should remain unknown, not only to the
      authorities, but to all individuals outside the organisation. This
      organisation must be arevolutionaryorganisation. It must be
      composed of men and women who clearly understand the tasks of the
      Social-Democraticworking-class movement and who have resolved to engage in a
      determined struggle against the present political system. It must combine
      within itself the socialist knowledge and revolutionary experience
      acquired from many decades of activity by the Russian revolutionary
      intelligentsia with the knowledge of working-class life and conditions and
      the ability to agitate among the masses and lead them which is
      characteristic of the advanced workers. It should be our primary concern
      not to set up an artificial partition between the intellectual and the
      worker, not to form a “purely workers’" organisation, but to strive,
      above all, to achieve the above-stated combination. We permit ourselves in
      this connection to quote the following words of G. Plekhanov:

“Anecessary condition for this activity [agitation] is the
      consolidation of the already existing revolutionary forces. Propaganda in
      the study circles can be conducted by men and women who have no mutual
      contact whatever with one another and who do not even suspect one
      another’s existence; it goes without saying that the lack of organisation
      always affects propaganda, too, but it does not make it
      impossible. However, in a period of great social turmoil, when the
      political atmosphere is charged with electricity, when now here and now
      there, from the most varied and unforeseen causes, outbreaks occur with
      increasing frequency, heralding the approaching revolutionary
      storm—in a word, when it is necessary either to agitate or remain in
      the rear, at such a timeonly organisedrevolutionary forces can
      seriously influence the progress of events. The individual then becomes
      powerless; the revolutionary cause can then be carried forward only on the
      shoulders of units of a higher order—byrevolutionary
      organisations”(G. Plekhanov,The Tasks of the Socialists
      in the Fight Against the Famine, p. 83).

Preciselysuch a period is approaching in the history of the Russian
      working-class movement, a period of turmoil and of outbreaks precipitated
      by the most varied causes, and if we do not wish to remain “in the
      rear,” we must direct all our efforts towards establishing an all-Russian
      organisation capable of guiding all the separate outbreaks and ensuring in
      this way that the approaching storm (to which the Kharkov worker also
      refers at the end of the pamphlet) is not an elemental outburst, but a
      conscious movement of the proletariatstanding at the head of the entire people in revolt against the
      autocratic government.

Inaddition to manifesting the insufficient unity and preparedness of our
      revolutionary organisations, the Kharkov May Day celebrations also furnish
      another and no less important practical indication. “The May Day
      festival and demonstration,” we read in the pamphlet, “were
      unexpectedly interconnected with various practical demands presented
      without relevant preparation and, consequently, in general doomed to
      failure.” Let us take, for example, the demands put forward by the
      railway-workshop employees. Of the fourteen demands, eleven have to do
      with minor improvements, which can quite easily be achieved even under the
      present political system—wage increases, reduction of hours, removal
      of abuses. Included among these demands, as though identical with them,
      are the following three: 4) introduction of an eight-hour day, 7)
      guarantee against victimisation of workers after the May First events, and
      10) establishment of a joint committee of workers and employers for
      settling disputes between the two parties. The first of these demands
      (point 4) is a general demand advanced by the world proletariat; the fact
      that this demand was put forward seems to indicate that the advanced
      workers of Kharkov realise their solidarity with the world socialist
      working-class movement. But precisely for this reason it should not have
      been included among minor demands like better treatment by foremen, or a
      ten per cent increase in wages. Demands for wage increases and better
      treatment can (and should) be presented by the workers to their employers
      in each separate trade; these are trade demands, put forward by separate
      categories of workers. The demand for an eight-hour day, however, is the
      demand of the whole proletariat, presented, not to individual employers,
      but to the state authorities as the representative of the entire
      present-day social and political system, to the capitalist class as a
      whole, the owners of all the means of production. The demand for an
      eight-hour day has assumed special significance. It is a declaration of
      solidarity with the international socialist movement. We need to make the
      workers understand this difference, so that they do not reduce the demand
      for the eight-hour day to the level of demands like free railway tickets,
      or the dismissal of awatchman. Throughout the year the workers, first in one place and then in
      another, continuously present a variety of partial demands to their
      employers and fight for their achievement. In assisting the workers in
      this struggle, socialists must always explain its connection with the
      proletarian struggle for emancipation in all countries. And the First of
      May must be the day on which the workers solemnly declare that they
      realise this connection and resolutely join in the struggle.

Letus take the tenth demand which calls for the establishment of a
      committee for the settlement of disputes. Such a committee composed of
      representatives of the workers and the employers could, of course, be very
      useful, but only if the elections were absolutely free and the elected
      representatives enjoyed complete independence. What purpose would such a
      committee serve, if the workers, who wage a struggle against the election
      of creatures of the management or who strongly attack the management and
      expose its tyranny, end by being discharged?  Such workers would not only
      be discharged, they would be arrested. Consequently, for such a committee
      to be of service to the workers, the delegates must, first, be absolutely
      independent of the factory management; this can be achieved only when
      there are free labour unions embracing many factories, unions that have
      their own resources and are prepared to protect their delegates. Such a
      committee can be useful only if many factories, if possible all the
      factories in the given trade, are organised. Secondly, it is necessary to
      secure guarantees of the inviolability of the person of the workers, i.e.,
      that they will not be arrested arbitrarily by the police or the
      gendarmerie. This demand to guarantee the workers against victimisation
      was put forward (point 7). But from whom can the workers demand guarantees
      of the inviolability of the person and freedom of association (which, as
      we have seen, is a necessary condition for the success of the committees)?
      Only from the state authorities, because the absence of a guarantee of
      inviolability of the person and freedom of association is due to the
      fundamental laws of the Russian state. Mere than that, it is due to the
      very form of government in Russia. The form of government in Russia is
      that of an absolute monarchy. The tsar is an autocrat, he alone decrees
      the laws and appoints all the higherofficials without any participation of the people, without participation
      of the people’s representatives. Under such a state system there can be no
      inviolability of the person; citizens’ associations, and particularly
      working-class associations, cannot be free. For that reason, it is
      senseless to demand guarantees of the inviolability of the person (and
      freedom of association) from an autocratic government; for such a demand
      is synonymous with demanding political rights for the people, and an
      autocratic government is termed autocratic precisely because it implies
      negation of political rights for the people. It will be possible to obtain
      a guarantee of the inviolability of the person (and freedom of
      association) only whenrepresentatives of the peopletake part in
      legislation and in the entire administration of the state. So long as a
      body of people’s representatives does not exist, the autocratic
      government, upon making certain petty concessions to the workers, will
      always take away with one hand what it gives with the other. The May Day
      celebrations in Kharkov were another vivid proof that this is so—the
      governor con ceded to the demands of the working masses and released those
      who had been arrested, but within a day or two, on orders’ from
      St. Petersburg, scores of workers were again rounded up. The gubernia and
      factory officials “guarantee” immunity to delegates, while the
      gendarmes seize them and fling them into prison in solitary confinement or
      banish them from the city! Of what use are such guarantees to the people?

Hence,the workers must demand from the tsar the con vocation of an
      assembly of the representatives of the people, the convocation of a Zemsky
      Sobor. The manifesto distributed in Kharkov on the eve of the First of May
      this year raised this demand, and we have seen that a section of the
      advanced workers fully appreciated its significance. We must make sure
      thatalladvanced workers understand clearly the necessity for
      this demand and spread it, not only among the masses of the workers, but
      among all strata of the people who come into contact with the workers and
      who eagerly desire to know what the socialists and the “urban”
      workers are fighting for. This year when a factory inspector asked a group
      of workers precisely what they wanted, only one voice shouted, “A
      constitution!”; and this voice sounded so isolatedthat the correspondent reported somewhat mockingly:

      “One proletarianblurted out....” Another correspondent put
      it, “Under the circumstances,” this reply was
      “semi-comical” (seeLabour Movement in Kharkov,
      Report of the Kharkov Committee of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour
      Party, published byRabocheye Dyelo, Geneva, September 1900,
      p. 14). As a matter of fact, there was nothing comical in the reply at
      all. What may have seemed comical was the incongruity between the demand
      of this lone voice for a change in the whole state system and the demands
      for a half-hour reduction in the working day and for payment of wages
      during working hours. There is, however, an indubitable connection between
      these demands and the demand for a constitution; and if we can get the
      masses to understand this connection (and we undoubtedly will), then the
      cry “A constitution!” will not be an isolated one, but will come
      from the throats of thousands and hundreds of thousands, when it will no
      longer be comical, but menacing. It is related that a certain person
      driving through the streets of Kharkov during the May Day celebrations
      asked the cabby what the workers wanted, and he replied: “They want
      an eight-hour day and their own newspaper.”  That cabby understood that
      the workers were no longer satisfied with mere doles, but that they wanted
      to be free men, that they wanted to be able to express their needs freely
      and openly and to fight for them. But that reply did not yet reveal the
      consciousness that the workers are fighting for the liberty of the whole
      people and for their right to take part in the administration of the
      state. When the demand that the tsar convene an assembly of people’s
      representatives is repeated with full consciousness and indomitable
      determination by the working masses in all industrial cities and factory
      districts in Russia; when the workers have reached the stage at which the
      entire urban population, and all the rural people who come into the towns,
      understand what the socialists want and what the workers are fighting for,
      then the great day of the people’s liberation from police tyranny will not
      be far off!